something to hope for
by ASongInMyHead
Summary: "Thanks," she says perhaps a little too sharply. She wonders briefly if she ought to be embarrassed about making a scene, but decides that boys in dreams don't get opinions.


Leia is six when she first dreams of sand.

"Fields of it that go on forever," she tells her mother when she scoops her onto her lap. "I don't think I'd like the desert, there'd be nothing to _do._ "

"It's a good thing we're a long way from any desert," Breha reassures her, stroking her hair.

"Yes," Leia is so serious and so small, and Breha has to suppress a smile. She kisses her daughter's cheek and sends her off to play. Later, she mentions Leia's dream to her husband, and is startled by the fear that flares in Bail's eyes.

—

It's isn't until the night before her thirteenth birthday that Leia dreams of the desert again. She falls asleep that night with mountains visible from her bedroom window, and closes her eyes to find herself in the desert once more. She remembers her childhood dream, and wonders if she is visiting the same place.

Sweat rolls in drops from under her hair and down the thick fabric of her nightgown. She searches desperately for a landmark, anything to tell her where she is. She turns the the east and sees twin suns blazing high in the sky, one just lower than the other.

 _Tatooine_ , she thinks. She's seen the holos.

The crunching sound of footsteps catches her attention and she turns to see a creature sprinting towards her. It's a small, hooded figure, armed with a wicked spear almost as tall as she is. She fumbles towards her waist for a blaster, but of course she is unarmed. Leia curses and turns to run.

She doesn't make it far before her bare foot catches on the hem of her nightgown and she pitches forward into the sand with a cry. Her knees and palms burn from the impact and she stretches her fingers to hold onto something, but the hot grains of sand fall through her fingers like water.

"Hey," a voice brings her from her panic, and fingers clasp around her arms. She grasps onto the helping arms, grateful for something solid. Rising up, she finds herself staring at a boy with kind blue eyes, around her age. Leia turns her head to where the creature was, but there is nothing there.

"Thanks," she says perhaps a little too sharply. She wonders briefly if she ought to be embarrassed about making a scene, but decides that boys in dreams don't get opinions.

"Of course," he tells her earnestly. "Why were you running?"

"Something was chasing me. It went away."

"Are you alright?"

"I'm _fine_. I'm just hoping to wake up soon," Leia lets go of the boy and brushes her sandy hands on her nightgown, leaving little bloody spots on her side. "I don't like these kinds of dreams."

The boy laughs without humour. His hair, Leia realizes, is nearly the same colour as the terrain. "At least you get to leave when I wake up."

Leia stares at him for a moment, wishing that she could have at least dreamt about a clever boy. "I don't understand."

"Well, you're lucky that you're just in my head, because you'd hate it here if you were real," he scuffs his boot through the sand. Some of the grains land on Leia's toes and she steps back.

"I get to leave when _I_ wake up," she retorts.

She looks back at the boy, and finds that his lips have parted and he is staring at her with a furrowed brow.

"What's your name?" He asks.

Leia's own name is on the tip of her tongue, but before she can respond, the boy vanishes. Leia gasps, and then the suns disappear, and the desert too, and she is back in her bed with the snow-dusted mountains looming in the distance. A stinging pain causes her to look down at her hands. Spots of blood are crusted onto her hands, harder where grains of sand have stuck to the scratches. She rolls over and presses her face in her pillow to keep from screaming.

—

She doesn't speak of the dreams again for over ten years.

She's sitting in the _Falcon'_ s cramped kitchenette, her fingers pressed gently against her temples. They've lost so much, but somehow they've won, they've survived. She senses Luke before he enters the room, but she doesn't look up until he takes a seat beside her.

"Do you remember dreaming about me?" He asks, after a moment.

Leia looks up, surprised. There are so many parts of her life that she's been reevaluating, so many things that make her think _she should have known._

"I do," she replies. "Though I didn't always know it was you."

"Neither did I," his lips twitch up, and she pushes her chair closer so that their knees are touching. "I was always lonely back then, but I felt it especially around my birthday. And then you were there."

She smiles, and sees her face reflected in his. "And now I'm here."

"Now we're here."


End file.
